Escape to the Sea (Tangled Hearts #1)

Chapter 11 Lost at Sea

Sylf

The Sea of Possibility, the plane of the fey. A dangerous land of sights unseen, of costly deals, of madness and mystery.

Walking into the Sea is still a closely guarded secret. The Faesari Enclave has most of the Sea-Walkers, but there are small pockets of elves throughout Ilcanos who can perform the act. When I was a girl, my sisters and I would occasionally stumble upon thin pockets between our world and the Sea in the forests around our home. But it is one thing to enter. It’s much harder to leave. Without the ability to navigate, you could get lost forever.

It’s a place of danger, but for me? It’s also a place of bedtime stories, or passing time on a hunt, or a kiss from my father on my forehead before he cast himself into the waves of the Sea.

He uses a style of Sea-walking all his own, charting how the Sea brushes up against our plane. He monitors the phases of the sun and the moons, the stars and the weather. One time, I watched him step off a specific ledge on a mountain into open air and disappear before my eyes.

I begged him so many times to take me with him. He would simply tell me that he would take me when I was older. Even with his calculations, there could be incidents. You could try to go to the Glistening Jungles Where the Waterfalls have No Beginning Nor End, and wind up at the Decrepit Steppes of the Lost.

Even odder are the denizens of the Sea. The arch-fey rule this plane like gods. Some are fixed in their place, but others wander, unmoored, looking for the next odd curiosity to grab their attention. They have their own motives and goals and enjoy trapping mortals into their own little deals or bargains. I think my father’s hesitation stems from that; in his youth, he struck an unfavorable deal after being lost in the Sea for nearly a month. It’s one of the reasons I learned how to listen for loopholes, to carefully plan out my work.

But now I’m here . I’m in the Sea!

I’m not quite sure where we are, which is dangerous. We are in the middle of a huge old-growth forest, but it’s quite different from the Great Thatch. The forest we’re in now appears to be in the stages of late autumn, with each tree showing a beautiful display of different leaves. The sky overhead is overcast, with soft gray clouds obscuring a bright pink sky with three suns. The air is sickly sweet, giving off a heady aroma that I can’t place. There’s a low fog that rolls in near the ground. It’s humid but cool, and it’s alive around us. There are all sorts of chittering sounds, the soft buzz of bees, everything that you could want out of a hunt in the fall.

After decades of hearing my father’s stories and promises, of later, and not yet, I’m finally here. And I made it here of my own accord. I look back and remember how I got here.

Ephraim of Branch Echtarch.

The light golden leaf necklace still rests gently under his tunic. Golden, magical. It has a kindred magic that resonates with my own amulet. A token like that would make walking through the Sea much easier.

“Your mother is Faesari then? She’s a Sea-Walker?”

He nods hesitantly. “Yes. She used it to--”

“Have you used it before? Did she bring you to the Sea? Who taught you to navigate?”

He holds up a hand. “Wait, wait. Let’s start at the beginning. My mother never took me to the Sea. But I watched her use this quite a few times.”

“So is it a timer? Or is some sort of waypoint? How did it know where to transport us to?” I lean closer to him, pushing his lapels away to get a better look at it. The leaves have a faint fading glow around them. It’s subtle, but still noticeable. Despite this glow, it’s still cool to the touch, especially against his skin.

“Oh!” he squawks. “It’s… you were holding my hands, and it takes whoever is touching the user. Ah, like you’re touching me now.”

Behind us, Tomlyn scoffs, and turns to try and get his bearings.

The reality of the moment catches up with me. My hand against his chest, the apple of his throat bobbing in a way that nearly hypnotizes me. I snatch my hand back in a second and take a step back, centering myself. “So, is there another recitation that you use to leave?”

At that, Ephraim turns to look at a very uninteresting branch. My stomach drops. “Are you serious? We’re stuck here?”

Ephraim holds up his hands in surrender. “They were closing in on us. You said we couldn’t fight them, even after taking out all those others. We needed an escape. I found us one.”

“It’s not a good escape unless we have safe passage out , Ephraim,” I snap.

Tomlyn laughs harder, and then starts to speak. But it comes out in the low musical dialect of his native tongue. I love listening to him speak Kastii, but I can’t speak that dialect of Elvish well. I catch “cute,” but that’s about it.

“Tomlyn, what are you saying?”

Tomlyn starts to rip off a rapid stream of words as he slips back into rest, his eyes getting that sharp look in them. But it’s still Kastii, not Aurelian.

“You’re still speaking Kastii, Tomlyn,” I reply.

Tomlyn’s face shifts and then he starts again. His tone doesn’t change. He points between the two of us, and then finally manages with, “surface elves.”

“What does he mean? Surface elves?” Ephraim asks.

In Aurelian, I say “We’re all speaking in—” and then I stop. My Aurelian isn’t Aurelian again. I try again in the pidgin language of the Trunk. The result is the same. “Elvish,” I murmur in my mother tongue. “We’re all speaking Elvish.”

“You are speaking Elvish. I speak Kastii,” Tomlyn says. While we had been working on Tomlyn’s Elvish, he’s far from true fluency. “You have the wrong music ,” he says.

Ephraim frowns, but I think I can translate. “The cadence. Kastii and Elvish share an old root, but the dialect has changed significantly since Karstians have been underground. It’s too different now to be compatible.”

“Better,” Tomlyn says smugly.

“A matter of opinion,” I wave him off dismissively.

Tomlyn laughs again, letting out another sentence. His voice is low and soothing, a different tone altogether than the one he uses to speak other languages. Hearing it eases the worry in my chest that I’ve been holding since I left Yaventown.

I move closer to him, doing the best I can with the little Kastii I do know. “You’re right… Kastii is music.”

Tomlyn pulls me closer, his eyes trained on me. For a moment, everything falls away, and there’s nothing in this plane but him. The wisps of his slightly too long hair fall into his eyes, drawing me down into his strong nose and the full lips that I know so well. He tilts my chin up and kisses me, sweet and gentle. Somehow, even after three days in the woods, he smells like the burning wood of a hearth. Like a cozy tavern. Like home .

“We teach you more Kastii later,” he muses in Elvish.

“We both need more practice,” I reply.

He hums with agreement and kisses my jawline. I turn to capture his mouth again, but a loud cough interrupts us.

Ephraim stands with his arms crossed, his posture stiff with annoyance. “I’m sorry, but this is poor timing for a tryst in the woods. We have important matters to attend to.”

“You want tryst?” Tomlyn says cheekily in Elvish, squeezing me possessively.

The tips of Ephraim’s pointed ears turn bright red. “Well, as Atrea so eloquently pointed out, we are stuck here. We should concentrate on finding shelter for the night. If there even is a night in this place.”

“I can’t believe this. This is the second time I’ve let myself get lost in a hostile world because of a blond fool.” I mutter. First into Karst with that idiot Dontain, and now this.

“We should make our way out, yes?” Tomlyn asks. “Figure out plan?”

“When is the next time that we will be in the Sea? No, I think we should explore first.”

“I didn’t think you’d be the one to advocate for taking risks,” Ephraim says.

I look past him, up to the bright red leaves of the closest tree and how the sunlight moves through them, dappling and skewing the sunlight on the ground. All throughout the forest there are similar little beams of light.

“Sometimes, the gamble is worth taking,” I say, then pick an arbitrary heading and begin to walk.

The forest is wild and dangerous in a way that the forests near my home and around Yaventown are not. I can hear the strange sound of chittering and humming all around us, the drone of insects at a different drone and frequency. The earth under my feet is surprisingly springy, even despite the damp and the leaf cover. It looks like the leaves are falling, but they never really touch the ground. I capture one with my hands and inspect it for a second before it shimmers into sunlight.

The longer we spend exploring, the more flora I recognize from my mother’s garden. My family home was built near several thin points, so it doesn’t surprise me that she was able to maintain plants from this plane. I stop both the men behind me and kneel, pointing to the thick green stalk. It has thin angular flowers, reminiscent of a Bird of Paradise plant.

“Teeth?” Tomlyn frowns. “It bites?”

“Sometimes. It’s carnivorous.”

Ephraim looks fascinated, but Tomlyn acts first, taking a small rock from the ground and tossing it towards the plant. A long sinewy tongue shoots out, catching the rock out of mid-air and crunching down on it with teeth narrow and fine like rows of needles. Then it spits the rock back out, striking Tomlyn in the forehead.

Tomlyn stumbles back onto his butt, cursing and ranting in Kastii. Ephraim doubles over with laughter, bright and warm.

“ Karadin ! You knew!”

“I did tell you it’s carnivorous. I suppose it’s tenderizing you,” I shrug, chuckling as I stand back up.

“So, you recognize these plants? You’ve traveled here before?”

“No, but some of the plants I’ve seen before.”

Ephraim takes this as his cue to start to point out all the other flowers that seem fascinating. He asks about the trees as Tomlyn leans against one and it shakes before turning away from him. Tomlyn taps it again lightly, and a shower of leaves fall out as its branches rustle.

“Ticklish?” Tomlyn asks, trying again, clearly amused.

Ephraim huffs. “Don’t annoy the flora, Tommy!”

Tomlyn gives a lopsided grin and shoves his hands into his pockets, content to follow along.

Ephraim asks me about the flowers growing out of a large, felled tree, its bright yellow petals waving gently.

“Touch one of the petals, here, on the underside,” I say.

“I hardly think that makes sense after the spitting plant,” he says, clearly alarmed.

I grab his hand and pull it closer, placing it on the smooth, lightly furred surface of the petal. Ephraim yelps, but I have his hand in a firm grip. His fear melts into wonder as he takes over on his own, petting it gently. As he moves his hand to pet it a third time, the petals snap shut and down into the stalk, retracting and starting to tremble.

“What in Nyman’s name?” Ephraim cries.

I can’t help but laugh. “Oh, that never gets old. They get quite nervous. My sister and I used to do that all the time. They get anxious and will stay closed for days. It would make my mother so angry.”

Ephraim’s look is so gentle in that moment as he gives me a soft smile. My heart races, which is foolish for many reasons. Most of all because I barely know this prince, and yet I’ve already told him about my sister and my mother. I turn away, unable to bear the warmth of his gaze, and find Tomlyn staring at me nearly the exact same way.

“What?” I snap primly, standing up.

Tomlyn finds his words. “You… This is a good place for you.”

“If we had a way out, it would be,” I retort.

Tomlyn chuckles, nudging Ephraim. “Cute, yes?”

Ephraim nods, smiling. “Oh, quite cute.”

“I am not cute.”

“Disagree!” Tomlyn says cheerfully.

I start to reply, wanting to insist he’ll ruin my flawless and impenetrable reputation, but I decide it’s not worth it, opting to glare at him instead. It only makes Tomlyn smile wider, which is very cute. Not that I’d tell him that, the smug ass.

“We could camp here,” Ephraim says, moving past us and patting the giant felled tree. It’s easily big enough to house all three of us comfortably. “We could make a little fire, and then try and find some food before the sun sets fully.”

I shrug. “It’s barely late afternoon. But the days could work differently here, I suppose.”

Ephraim nods, and at once looks relieved. That’s when I finally notice the way he’s been holding himself as we walk around the tree to look for an opening. He’s holding one arm closer to his body, and there’s a slight limp in his gait. Perhaps he has his own motives for resting.

Tomlyn’s caretaking nature gets the better of him, and he makes quick work of securing the area around the tree. He moves from tree to tree, conjuring traps with strange sticky bases with bulbs and spikes in the center. I set our packs inside and motion for Ephraim to join me.

He sits down as I open up my kit, handing him a health potion.

“I have a salve too.”

“There’s no broken skin, it’s just bruising. It will heal,” Ephraim says. “I’m good with this, thank you.”

“You need to tell us when you’re hurting. Tomlyn and I are more used to combat than you.”

“Oh yes, what should I have said was, ‘let’s lie down here in the middle of this forest where we have no idea of a heading or what danger we’re in.’”

I roll my eyes. I don’t have the patience to deal with this snotty behavior. “Ephraim, listen to me. We are all stuck in this world together. Without a way out, we could be stuck here forever . So you’re going to have to do what I say without whining.”

Ephraim carefully gets up, still favoring his left leg. “We’re alive. And no one is chasing us here. That was because of me. I can handle a little pain without whining. Besides, it seemed like you were enjoying yourself earlier.”

“I’ll enjoy it more when we have a tangible way out,” I reply. “I don’t know how much you know about the Sea, but I’ve heard horror stories. I don’t want to become one. Not everything about the Sea is bright and beautiful. There are things here that are sharp, hostile. Alien. We need to ensure we have an exit before we get lost here forever. I want to get back home. Tomlyn and I have a life out there. I’m sure you have people you care about that you want to get back to as well.”

Ephraim’s eyes harden, and all at once the mask settles on, cold and aloof and sharp in its placidity. “Yes, I would hate to deprive you and Tomlyn of that life. I’ll go ask if he needs help with the traps.”

With that, he stalks out, never looking back.

The shift is strange. Can he really be so surprised that I don’t want to get stuck here forever? That I ventured out to save my karadin , the man I love?

I walk out to the edge of the clearing, checking for threats large or small. All I see are a few birds, brilliant in their coloration in the golden hour of light.

It gives me far too much time to think, to reassess.

It shouldn’t bother me, the way his face changed from vulnerable and wanting to that fake mask. I don’t owe Ephraim anything. I had one dance with him in a sea of polished courtiers. He nearly got both himself and Tomlyn killed, and he blocked my shot on Mithrai.

So why am I so bothered?

“Now that this is prepped, we should go out, try to find something to eat,” I say, grabbing my pack.

“Wherever you lead,” Ephraim says coolly.

Tomlyn senses the tension between us and shares a look with me. I roll my eyes and start walking. Stupid, petulant prince. I will simply get to the work of keeping us alive. The rest will figure itself out.